


The dawn won't stop weighing a tonne

by Bananas45



Category: B: The Beginning (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Cheating, Implied Gilbert/Laica, M/M, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-06-23 21:10:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15615075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bananas45/pseuds/Bananas45
Summary: “You must be really cold” Keith mumbles, in an attempt at conversation. It’s funny, people are usually trying to engage him and here he is, tongue tied beside a teenager. A teenager with wings who’s a wanted murderer who single handedly took down a deadly group of spies.Koku’s a funny one.Set after ep 12.





	The dawn won't stop weighing a tonne

**Author's Note:**

> This pairing has been eating me up for actual months on end. I thought maybe someone else would write it because tbh I wasn't sure how I felt about it but then...Y'know it started to eat me up inside and I was like I need to write this or my heart will give out. 
> 
> I do apologise for never being able to write anything happy. 
> 
> I really love this pairing...even if it makes me feel slightly guilty for some reason.

“Stay still-”   
“I am still”   
“I did tell you-”   
“I know”   
“I said-”   
“OW!”   
“Sorry...” He sighs and wipes his hands. “I’m no good at this...We should take you to hospital”   
“No hospital”   
They hold each other's gaze. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and Koku looks away.   
“Please, Keith”   
“Alright” He murmurs. “Alright”   
He wonders how it’s possible for someone to sit through pain like this and barely flinch. When Koku found him, barely healing and tragic looking, Keith had taken him and Yuna home and when Koku had asked if he could bandage him up, he’d accepted.   
Ignoring five phone calls about urgent debriefs and Lily’s frantic voicemails asking if he was okay, he sat Koku at his kitchen table and let the boy strip off the torn clothes.   
Besides, this was cathartic. It took his mind of everything else.   
Took his mind of Gilbert.   
“You must be really cold” Keith mumbles, in an attempt at conversation. It’s funny, people are usually trying to engage him and here he is, tongue tied beside a teenager. A teenager with wings who’s a wanted murderer who single handedly took down a deadly group of spies.   
Koku’s a funny one.   
“You’ve missed” Koku murmurs. “Under my arm”   
“Ah...right, yeah sorry”   
Koku lifts up his arm and Keith digs the tweezers into the bullet wound. Koku breathes out softly.   
“It is cold” the boy says, gently and slightly strained.   
Keith drops the bullet on the ground to join the rest and then runs his fingers over the skin.   
“Jesus he did a number on you” Keith murmurs. “How many bullets-”   
“I only counted clips”   
“How many clips?”   
“Bout ten”   
Keith raises his eyebrows.  
“and he was a really good shot” Koku adds.   
He picks away at more holes and rummages around as he can. Koku stays perfectly still and stares out into the snow like all this means very little to him.   
That blank expression is one that Keith is becoming well acquainted with.   
Both the Minatsuki’s had it, a sereneness to your features that makes it seem as though they’re unaffected by most thing. Keith wonders if it’s only because they don’t experience ‘most’ things.   
He watches, transfixed as the wounds begin to close up.   
“There aren’t many bullets” Keith murmurs, looking at his blood stained floor. That’s not coming out the wood.   
“Check my back for exit wounds” Koku replies, an authority to his voice that startles Keith a little.   
“Just lean down a little” Keith instructs and Koku braces both hands on the kitchen table as he puts his head to the table a little.   
“Yeah there’s a few” Keith counts five maybe, littered across the skin. “One on your shoulder and another just under your ribs, one sort of on your spine” he maps them with his hand, feels the tension building there. Koku’s trembling a little more now as he runs a finger across the scars on his shoulder blades. “You’re pretty scarred up-”   
Koku yelps suddenly and in a rush of blood and feathers, his wings cut across the table, knocking everything off it with clatter and a bang. The wing span is surprisingly long and takes all his pots and pans off the wall with the force.   
The noise rings around them and with a slow diminuendo the last pan lies still on the ground.  
Koku squeezes his eyes shut.   
“I am, yeah, hah- sorry” He’s flushed and the two take a moment in the silence, with the morning light creeping in, to regard one another. “Sometimes-”  
“Don’t apologise” Keith says and lets his eyes roam over the mess, suppresses a sigh and rubs his temples. He ignores the flush on Koku’s cheeks and the dilation in his pupils and the tension in his movements. It’s mildly annoying that he always notices these things so he does what all good people do in these situations and asks “How’s Yuna?”   
Koku’s eyes close and he takes a breath in, the wings retract and Keith is a little disappointed. He really does want to touch them.   
“I don’t know” Koku looks away. “Fine, probably”   
Keith sits down and drops his jumper over Koku to hide the broad expanse of scars and blood, bullet holes and well trained, toned, skin. Keith ignores the fact that even sat down Koku has a noticeable six pack.   
Koku slips it on, hiding his hands in the sleeves.   
“Thanks”   
“You’ve dedicated your whole life to finding her-”   
“Don’t say that” Koku murmurs and leans his head in the crook of his elbow.   
“Well you have her now”   
“That’s the problem”   
Koku sits back and pulls his feet up onto the chair, hugging his knees. “I don’t...I don’t know what to do with myself”   
Keith sighs and stretches, gets up and begins to make coffee. Koku stays perfectly still, as though he’s trying to minimise the effect he has on his surroundings. He’s unsure what to say or how to make Koku better. He’s pretty broken himself.   
“She’s pretty” He says by the stove.   
“Yuna?” Koku asks.   
“Yeah”   
Koku goes quiet and then slowly begins to pick the bullets up of the floor. The light in the apartment is terrible and the whole room is an awkward, sick yellow. Koku comes close and pours the bullets into a spare cup. They tinkle loudly as they fall.   
“I never noticed...” Koku says with an awkward little smile. “Just...I just cared about her, you know?”   
Keith’s heart clenches painfully. Yeah, he knows.

“She’s pretty”   
“Who?”   
“Erika!”   
“I don’t notice that sort of thing” 

“Koku” He turns and Koku looks over, wide eyed. “Just for the record. I didn’t mean it in a creepy way. I meant it because she is pretty-”   
“I know-”   
“Not because I like her or like you, or plan to violently murder her for the sake of an over elaborate revenge plot”   
Koku blinks and steps back a little. Keith watches the water boil.   
“It’s been a long day for me too”   
Koku nods and gets the coffee grounds as he picks up the broken cups and pots and pans.   
The events of the day have scarred them. Not just like how Koku is scarred, all down his back and riddled with holes. It’s deeper than that.   
They both feel it.   
It’s hard not to feel.   
It’s almost indelible- Strike that it’s not. Don’t give him the satisfaction.   
Pouring the coffee is calming in a sense even if it, again, reminds him of Gilbert. Every ounce of him is- not grieving. No, not grieving- just very aware of the loss, as though he’s hypersensitive because of it.   
“Thank you for being there for me” Koku murmurs into the cup, steam curling around him as he warms his hands. It’s the preface to something else, something deeper. He can feel the tension in the air between them.   
Keith rolls his eyes.   
“You were there for yourself, kid. I won't take the credit”   
Koku looks elated and his face softens a litte into something close to trust. His shoulders drop and his smile becomes gentler as he seems to swell with the emotions of the past few days. Of everything lost and gained, found and destroyed. His and Koku’s lives, so perfectly intertwined, crossing now of all times.   
Koku leans forward.   
“Don’t do what I think you’re about to do” Keith holds up a hand and gears himself up for tears.   
Koku blinks.   
“huh?...Get the sugar?” The boy tilts his head and closes his fingers around the little bowl.   
Now who’s the idiot.   
Maybe it’s because Koku isn’t human that Keith finds it so hard to judge him. Maybe that’s what makes him so exciting.   
“You know if you don’t like it you can just say” Keith smiles gently as Koku pours three- four, spoonfuls in.   
“No- no” Koku looks up. “It’s fine” He laughs softly. “A home comfort really”  
Keith just shakes his head.   
“I’ll sleep on the couch, you can have my room with Yu-”   
“No!” Koku stands. “No...I’ll take the couch”   
Keith grits his teeth. He can see what Koku’s trying.   
“Then where am I going?”   
Keith regards him because if he was Gilbert this would be a game and he’d have to play his cards just right to make sure he didn’t get himself into something he shouldn’t. It was always about power with Gilbert.   
“I wasn’t thinking” Koku kicks a pillow softly and looks down. “I just- I’m...”   
But Koku isn’t Gilbert. He’s not Keith either. He’s just a boy.   
“Everything I’ve done, that I can remember doing, has led up to now and it’s over and I have Yuna and I...” Koku shakes his head. “I should be happy”   
Keith can sympathise, he knows what it’s like to spend seven years chasing things you don’t quite know the whole truth off.   
“Koku...”   
“But I’m not happy, I feel awful...” Koku picks at a bullet wound in his hand. He pauses. “And I really wanna kiss you”   
Keith stares, his glasses falling just down his nose, making half of Koku blurry.   
He knew he was right. Inhuman or not, Keith Flick can read emotions but the honesty catches him off guard. There is a trusting and genuine vulnerability in Koku’s mismatched eyes as he looks on with half hope and half creeping embarrassment.   
it’s not something he’s used to. He’s used to Gilbert.   
“Yeah...I thought as much” He says anyway, in an attempt to find familiar territory. Koku had left the pieces, intentionally or not and Keith had just put them together.   
He wishes sometimes that he had the ability to be tactful.   
Koku creates a whole new shade of red for himself.   
“And you didn’t say?!” He splutters. “Or do it, or...” the realisation dawns. “Right, because you don’t like me”   
Keith sighs out through his nose and takes a step closer to the boy.   
“No” He says. “I just know you’d come to regret it”   
Koku shakes his head. “I wouldn’t-”   
“Your girlfriend is next door, Koku” Keith says. “And you both almost died for each other today. Don’t let an infatuation with me - which is understandable, you’re young and I helped you when I had seemingly no reason to- ruin whatever you have with Yuna-”   
“I don’t have anything with her!” Koku shouts, eyes screwed shut. “I’m t-terrified I just used her to give myself a purpose...an excuse for killing those guys that wasn’t just revenge” He watches the tears begin to trail down Koku’s cheeks. “It was easier when everything was just instinct and I knew what I was doing and how I was doing it but I feel so...empty now. I can’t imagine my life without the fear and the killing and the drive. I don’t even know if I love her now I have her”   
“Koku” Keith takes his hands, young and soft but scarred and calloused, with rosin still under his fingernails. Keith didn’t know he played an instrument. “You’re on an adrenaline low, as beautifully poetic as that speech was. You almost died tonight, really almost died and I think it’s been a while since you really felt that fear-”   
Koku’s so fucking fast it’s annoying and the word is swallowed by his lips, insistent and demanding as they try to coax a response.   
Every rational part of Keith knows this is a terrible idea and yet somehow his hands are in Koku’s hair, inky black and silky soft.   
They’ve gone through a lot together and Keith knows what kind of bonds- misinterpreted or not- that can cause between people.   
Jesus, Flick, that’s a terrible excuse.   
Koku sighs into his mouth, as though he’s had some kind of epiphany and smiles with an abandon Keith now can’t quite bring himself to take away.   
He slows Koku down with a hand on his jaw and chuckles when he whines softly.   
There is something animalistic in the way the boy, smaller than him but so much stronger, shoves him down and straddles his hips. His breath puffs out in clouds against the cold (Keith’s boiler is fucked. He needs to get that fixed) and as much as Koku pulls at his scarf and jacket (which he didn’t remember to take off in the rush to get Koku sat down before he passed out from blood loss) he can’t quite bring himself to undress in the cold.  
Koku, already shirtless and sort of bleeding all over him, doesn’t let up- fuck, does the kid ever breath- and Keith doesn’t quite have the strength to push him off.   
“Koku-”   
He holds his shoulders and just manages to prize him off. Koku’s eyes are bright with lust and his lips shiny.   
Keith couldn’t stop him if he wanted to.   
There is something quite freeing about that.   
Something creaks upstairs and Koku’s eyes dart up, curl and disfigure as his arm explodes out into a blade that cut through Keith’s cushions .   
He keeps himself still as Koku looks up, eyes following the noise as his chest heaves. He’s tense, entranced by the thought of danger.   
He’s terrifying.   
“The buildings old” Keith says and can’t help but flinch a little when Koku jerks. “It does that”   
Koku stares, words barely registering, before he swallows, blinks and clears his throat.   
“Alright” Koku mumbles and Keith watches the arm twist and curl back to normal.   
He trails his hand down Koku’s arm and Koku interlinks their fingers with a gentleness, a familiarity that shocks Keith. He waits for his breath to even out.   
Koku’s beautiful.   
He suddenly does understand Gilbert. He understands the rush of power you get when you have a creature like Koku, Like Minatsuki, looking down at you like you mean everything to them when in the same breath they utter adoration for you they could kill you just as easily.   
But he’s not Gilbert and he won't take advantage of this.   
“Lemme get...blankets” Keith says and gently shuffles Koku off like a giant, limp, oversized dog.   
In some ways it’s a lot like the stray kitten him and Gilbert took in when they were at school. It hated them at first and then they gained it’s trust and fed it back to health and it would sit on Keith’s lap after lessons. It went missing a few weeks later and Gilbert had told him it must have run off.   
Keith doubts that it did. 

When he comes back from the cupboard, tripping over himself with blankets and pillows, Koku hasn’t moved. He’s still sat shirtless and trembling, like he didn’t quite know what to do with himself while Keith was away.   
Big dog.  
Yeah, he can understand why Gilbert got so attached if Minatsuki acted even half as loyal as this.   
Koku sits up to attention and helps lay out layers and layers of old, moth eaten blankets before burrowing under it.   
“I’m sorry I’m such a mess” Koku mutters. “And I can replace your pots I broke, and- and the cushions...”   
Jesus, is that why he thinks he stopped?  
“It’s not that” Keith slowly undoes his jacket and strips down to his boxers. Feels stupidly unattractive beside Koku but Koku is still looking dejected, Keith watches him try to work out what it is he did wrong.   
He’s refreshingly transparent.   
“I really shouldn’t” Keith says yet still ends up underneath Koku again, their chests press close enough that they finally begin to warm up.   
Koku nuzzles against his jaw and up till their noses rub, his eyelashes brushing against Keith’s cheek.   
Within minutes it becomes too hot and he notices just how close to sleep Koku is, body trembling with pleasure and lips lazy against Keith’s.   
He spins them both, one hand braced against the arm of the sofa as he keeps Koku close with the other.   
Koku’s eyes flutter but he’s surprisingly silent. It’s oddly attractive, even his breath his reserved if not a little ragged, spread out across Keith’s sofa in a mess of checkered camping blankets and half ripped bandages.   
Koku desperately swallows down Keith’s kisses with an eagerness that surprises them both.   
The more intense it gets the more aware Keith becomes of how much control he has here. Koku is completely inexperienced and almost completely reliant on Keith’s guidance.   
Yeah, fuck, Gilbert would have loved this.   
Koku’s breath is uncontrolled now, even if Keith hears no noise. He can feel Koku’s heart thunder against his rib cage and he pauses a little to feel it, really feel it.   
The beat is uneven, frantic, medically too fast. Keith tries not to think of all the sharp objects that have come through this way over the last few days.   
“Keith- I-” Koku whimpers, sweat plastering his hair to his forehead and thrashes under a vice other than pain for, fuck, maybe the first time in his life.   
Keith is almost entranced, hand sliding down past bruises and cuts and scars, old and new, into his pants- 

“Koku? 

It stops them both in their tracks and the pleasure, whatever Koku had wanted, begged for, seems to slip away as his eyes clear. Keith watches the guilt explode across that face.   
He did warn him.

“K-koku?” 

The boy in question throws an arm over his eyes and evens out his breaths with frantic gulps.   
“I’m coming, Yuna!”   
He dresses in a beautifully human rush, sliding on Keith’s shirt as he rushes through to see what’s happened. 

Keith watches the morning sun melt the snow on the window ledge. 

‘But you’re just like me’  
‘You made contact so you could exploit him’ 

Fuck off Gilbert.


End file.
